Haiku to You Winnie the Pooh

"There is something delicious about writing the first words of a story. You never quite know were they will take you.

I stole this from Chloaye....who took it from Beatrix.  Wonderful, isn't it?  I love to hear what authors say about writing.  For some reason, their words will stay with me, even if the date and time of big events in my own history won't.  My brain is wired that way . . . and I'm okay with that.

John Irving once said something along the lines of, "writing is a great way to spend your time alone."

I like writing, but I don't like spending time alone.  Much like my morning coffee, I need to write....for my own sense of well-being; but I don't do lonely well.  When I was completing my English Degree at Trent University, way back in the 1990's, I used to go down to the Champlain College Snack Bar, set myself up in a booth, and scribble my essays into a three-ring binder.  Since I didn't live at that particular residence, nobody knew me...I could be alone in a crowd and the writing felt less lonely.

In that booth - the far one to the left of the big window - I would often meander away from the prescribed assignments to write journal entries, poetry, or letters home to my grandmother.  These writing distractions (journal, letter, poetry) helped me to focus my active mind.  I needed that little taste of creativity, or the meaningful inward glances at my own life, to counterbalance the writing I was completing for my professors.   Over time I managed to integrate more of my creative self with my critical eye, and the process became more enjoyable.  I learned then that writing begets writing, and I still stand by that belief today. 

The more I write,
the more I want to write,
and the better my writing gets.
I hope.

Thinking back to a younger age, I was seven-years old when I first learned the power of the written word.  It manifested itself in a spiteful poem scribbled into a pink journal with a cat on the front of it which Santa left in my stocking the Christmas before.  My older sister had made me feel such angst I thought I would spit, or burst.  Since I didn't like spitting, and bursting was out of the question, I grabbed my pen, ripped into the journal and wrote venomous lines of ink across the page.

I have the worst sister in the world.
I would trade her in,
but nobody would take her.

That was my first Haiku of sorts, though I didn't know what Haiku was then, and I"m still not sure it would fit the definition.  What I do know for certain:  I needed three things to begin my life as a writer.  I needed the tools, I needed the feeling, and I needed the environment to write in.  We owe it to our students to nurture a language-rich culture in our classrooms.  To support students through exposure to a variety of rich texts; provide opportunity for writing to beget writing;  nurture the social aspect of learning - through peer conferencing and shared writing; and help students to place their own value on the written word.

I would like to end with a quote from the creator of that honey-searching bear of little brain, followed by my own attempt at being clever:

Ideas may drift into other minds, but they do not drift my way.
I have to go and fetch them. I know no work manual or mental to equal the
appalling heart-breaking anguish of fetching an idea from nowhere.

- A. A. Milne

Writing is not a passive activity. 
Teaching writing is not a passive activity either. 
We need to do what Winnie the Pooh's creater knew.

Nurture a climate right for inspiration.
Snowflakes falling with individual purpose and intent.
A desire to play in the snow.